The Contents and the Rise and Fall of the Rite and Music System

China is a country rich in the culture of rites and music，and there had produced three important literatures called“three rites”，namely，the first literature，“The Ritual”was credited to the Duke of the Zhou，to the disciples of Confucius or to an anonymous writer during the Qin and the Han dynasties period with the authorship indefinitely established，for scholars are still divided regarding the authorship；the ritual system recorded in thebook was all about the Zhou Dynasty，but became the canon for later dynasties to follow increating their own systems.The second piece of literature，”The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty” recorded the rituals，political systems and customs minutely，with clear classifications.The third piece of literature，”The Book of Rites”，completed in the Han Dynasty，was even richer than”The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty”in contents，and became a classic in the Tang Dynasty，with the elaborate rites of daily life，quotations of Confucius，and even.

systematic Confucian treatises included，such as “The Great Learning”and“The Doctrine of the Mean”which had been taken out and made two of the Four Books.There had been“Six Classics”handed down from the pre-Qin dynasty period，but only five of them survived time and remained，such as The Book of Songs，The Book of History，The Book of Rites，The Book of Changes，and The Spring and Autumn Annals，with The Book of Music lost forever.However，there was luckily a treatise of music from one of the five classics，The Book of Rites，which could offer us a glimpse of what ancient sages thought about the education through music，and the important function music and rites had played in moral education of thepeople；they believed that the imperial ceremonial music could have conveyed political message to the people，changed local customs and given depth to human relations.

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